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This morning Holly slept in until 9:45, I kid you not. I woke up at 9:30, not bothering to look at the clock because I assumed it was 7:30, the time we're always allowed to sleep in until on the weekends, much to our general consternation. In fact, on Friday night, Dave told Henry his only job in the morning was to not get up early because it's Saturday, and Saturday's are for sleeping in. I thought that was hilarious. Poor desperate Dave. Anyway, when I finally rolled over and peered at the clock this morning, it took a few seconds for it to hit me what time it really was, after which, I bolted out of bed and ran for the monitor to make sure I could hear Holly breathing because clearly the only explanation for her sleeping in to such a beautifully late hour would somehow involve doom and disaster. (Yes, I am a fatalist.) Halfway there, I heard one of those satisfying-sounding, heaving sighs that only little kids and dogs can muster. I detoured to the bathroom and marveled at our good luck. Henry had gotten up earlier but had managed to find Spongebob on the TV and was camped out on the couch. We had breakfast at 11. We went ice skating at 1, and, unbelievably, Holly took a nap around 3. Dave had to go up and wake her at 5:30. I'm worried that she's going to wake up a few days from now three inches taller. My baby!

Meanwhile, my doctor's appointment on Friday was horrifying. I had a nasal endoscopy, which I vehemently suggest you avoid, especially if you have allergies because it'll hurt and you'll cry and you'll feel like you need to sneeze. And your nose will run. A lot. And they'll have to pull out the scope so you can blow your nose and wipe your eyes and then they'll run it back in again anyway. So. At the end of May I'm going to have my tonsils removed. The doctor said I'll have a wicked sore throat for about a week, which, been there, done that three times so far this cold/flu season. Dave says I'll lose twenty pounds. I'm not looking forward to it. The doc also said I have sinus disease that's not related to my tonsils and suggested some things I could do for it, which, if they didn't work he could do surgery. I'm not convinced they're not related because the tonsil thing and the sinus thing all started up at the same time and flare up at the same times so my fingers are crossed that one thing will solve the other. In the meantime I'll do some of the things he suggested, such as humidify our bedroom, use a neti pot, etc.

Gah.

Posted by Jenn at 08:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Yesterday it was cold and dreary, the perfect day for staying in and keeping cozy, for knitting, playing, watching a little tv, sitting by the fire, and napping. Today it's cold and dreary, the perfect day for dropping the car off for an oil change and being driven nuts by the inability to go anywhere or do anything, not that there's anything to do or anywhere to go. Still, a girl likes pretending she has options.

It's supposed to snow tonight. That's totally fine with me, as long as it all melts away quickly with the help of a sunshiny, 55 degree day.

On Friday morning I'm going to see an ear/nose/throat specialist about having my tonsils taken out. Ever since the really bad cold I got the spring I was pregnant with Holly, every time I get sick, just when I think I'm on the mend my tonsils get huge, my throat hurts, and I get a sinus infection. Every. Time. No matter how insignificant the cold is. The sore throat lasts for about five days, the sinus infection lasts weeks. It's worse in the fall and spring, I think because that's when my seasonal allergies are in full swing on top of everything else that's going on. I usually power through any winter bouts so I can take antibiotics with the fall and spring colds, otherwise I'd be on antibiotics with alarming frequency. Every time Henry comes home with the sniffles I cower in the corner with fright. Anyway, last February when I got sick, my tonsils got so big that I had trouble swallowing. I'm worried that at some point, they'll get so big I'll have trouble breathing. Lest you think I'm joking, the last two times I've gone in for antibiotics, they take a mandatory swab to test for strep, and every time I open my mouth, both the nurse and then the doctor reel back in terror. When they've composed themselves, they inform me they've never seen tonsils so huge before. I'd tell you about how I can make them touch each other when I get sick like that, but I don't want to gross you out. So on Friday I'll go get checked out. I'm a little nervous about the prospect of having them removed because it's a worse recovery process for adults, but I figure it's better than having to be on antibiotics so often. Also, this time around we're not planning any home improvement projects in the near future, so that ought to help. Wish me luck.

Posted by Jenn at 12:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Holly and I just spent over two hours at the park where, through much trial and error, she mastered the slides, then promptly became a little afraid of them. Or she just got sick of them. The next trip will tell. It's stunningly beautiful out. I'm sure if I went on Facebook right now, there would be much chatter about the warm weather and windows being open and the morning spent at the park from everyone else who lives here. Because I can't just be satisfied with living in the moment, as soon as Holly went down for her nap, I went online to see about getting some swim gear for the upcoming pool season. Specifically, I need to get some sort of flotation device for Holly. I went on amazon and searched for "swim pda" and couldn't figure out why I kept getting hits from the electronics department. Then I realized my error, so I typed in "swim pdf" which caused amazon to throw up any random thing they sell that has the word "swim" in it. I was confused until I sounded out "personal flotation device" in my head, then realized my error, and typed in "swim pfd". That did it. Apparently getting the search string right was all I needed to accomplish because I immediately came on here to write about it and now I'm closing up shop and taking a nap.

Posted by Jenn at 12:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

For the sake of clarification in regards to my last post, Holly does not pick up her own toys and put them away. Last fall there was a glorious period of time where she did, but then the actual meaning of the "no" she was constantly saying became crystal clear to her, and thus an independent streak was born. Henry picks up his toys, grudgingly and with various huffs and puffs, all of which very nicely convey how utterly put out he is by the whole process. That's my boy.

Yesterday evening I experienced one of those idyllic moments that a woman, in that all-too-brief stage of pregnancy sandwiched between clinging desperately to the toilet and feeling like a miserable beached whale, allows herself to indulge in when she's pregnant with her first child and doesn't yet know any better. (I'm trying to see if I can make that last sentence either a: longer, or b: more flowery. I think I'll leave it be.) The three of us were sitting at the table. Henry was across from me, working on a picture of an Easter egg hunt, Holly was next to me, very diligently working on a scene involving lots of purple scribbles, and I was knitting. It lasted about fifteen minutes, so soon we were back to our usual level of utter chaos, but it was a glorious moment nonetheless.

Speaking of glorious, the weather here sure is. I'm contemplating heading to the park when Henry gets home from school. What a nice option to have on the table.

Posted by Jenn at 01:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Last summer when I sliced my finger open, there was a period of a few weeks when I couldn't really get anything done around the house, at least not until the wound had healed up a bit. It was freeing, having the excuse to sit around and watch everything get messier and messier, but when it was all said and done and I was back to semi-normal, I picked up and cleaned and laundered like a mad woman until everything was back the way it was supposed to be. It was a bit eye-opening, the pleasure I get from having a neat house and I now consider it a necessity for my mental well-being. If you had asked me at the time, I would have been all "Whatevs, I'm easy breezy, baby!" Now, I am comfortable knowing that I can be a bit Type A about it all.

While I appreciate living in a relatively clean and put together house, I loathe cleaning and would like to do as little of it as possible. Since January, I've managed to cobble together a system that works for me:

Mondays: laundry and vacuuming/steam mopping. I've discovered that if I don't make my last load of laundry our bed sheets, then whatever is in the dryer last stays there for days, which leads to days-long avoidance, which leads to the feeling that I'm doing laundry day after day, even though I'm not. So I force myself to make our sheets the last load.
Tuesdays: baking bread for the week.
Wednesdays: nothing
Thursdays: dusting
Fridays: clean the bathroom

I generally do all of these things while Holly plays or helps, which is great because then while she's napping I can do other things, like stare at the backs of my eyelids. I couldn't have done this when Henry was her age because he really needed me to be his playmate, whereas Holly can entertain herself or wants to help. Also, I don't want her thinking the house gets clean via magic. You know, like Dave does. (I kid.)

Also, I pick up and clean the dishes right after every meal. Walking into a disaster of a kitchen first thing in the morning when I need to get Henry's lunch and snack together for school after I've slept in ten minutes longer than I should have (the sleeping in bit happens every day) makes me feel like I don't have my act together at all and sets a bad tone for the rest of the morning. I'm also obsessive about getting the toys put away after the kids are done playing with them. This is due, in part, to the fact that we don't have a playroom. We have toys secreted and not-so-secreted away in every room of the house, so we have to keep on top of it. I wouldn't mind having a separate room full of toys that I could just close the door on, but I've convinced myself that teaching them to put their stuff away also teaches them to respect it. Not that they do either, but gosh-darned if it doesn't make me feel better about our lack of space.

Could this post be more navel-gazing? I'm not sure why I even feel compelled to write this out, but I do. I think it's partly because lately I've been feeling like I've got a pretty nice rhythm going to our days which is great, because usually I feel like I'm floundering, trying to get everything done.

Posted by Jenn at 01:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Dave and I had the most ridiculous night last night. We've been running on low energy for a few days so we decided to be responsible and go to bed early. Around midnight I woke up, but couldn't figure out why. After laying awake for a few minutes, it occurred to me that it was a little warm. We have the thermostat set low for the night, but once in a while, a certain person whom we'll call "Dave" (because that's his name) turns it up to 67 or 68 and then I spend the night tossing off covers in January because it gets so stinkin' hot in our room. So last night I clambered out of bed and worked my way over to the thermostat to see what was going on. It said the temperature in the house was 68, but it was set to turn off at 64. I puzzled over that for a while, then went back to bed and waited for our furnace to shut off. It didn't. So I got up again and wandered back over to the thermostat to try and shake off my general confusion. A few minutes later I decided we had a problem. I got back in bed and waited a few minutes then asked Dave if he was awake. He was. I told him what was going on and for a few minutes he just lay there. I think he was attempting to lay real still to see if I would go away. Eventually, we both got up and puzzled over the thermostat. We spent the next hour or so looking at the wires in our furnace (Dave), looking at the wires on our thermostat (Dave), seaching through online forums to see if anyone else has had this problem (me), and looking for .pdf's of the relevant manuals (me). We replaced batteries, discussed the merits of white and red wires, and generally just sat around confused while turning stuff off and back on again. Just after 1AM, we fixed the problem, which leads directly to a new problem: we don't know how we did it. I suppose we have a couple of theories, but nothing concrete enough to where if it happens again we won't look like we floundering and making stuff up as we go through the same motions we did last night. We're a little grumpy because the whole heating system isn't even two years old yet. Also, the whole experience begs the question: what if this happens when we're traveling? It would be a bit expensive to have a furnace heating the house non-stop for who-knows-how-long. We don't really trust it anymore. By the time we went to bed, the house was 75 degrees, and that was despite us having turned the system off for most of the hour we were trouble-shooting.

Around 1:15 I tossed down a couple of Tylenol, went to bed, and hoped for the best. I fell asleep after tossing and turning for a while. Dave, on the other hand, was completely jazzed and didn't get to sleep until 4:30. So much for being responsible and going to bed early. Clearly it doesn't pay. Here's to a surreal day informed by sleep-deprivation. Hollah!

Posted by Jenn at 09:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

On Saturday, Dave left the house at 6:15AM and came home just in time for dinner. He was a judge for our region's Odyssey of the Mind competition. It was a long but fun day for him. Meanwhile, I juggled both kids. It was a long but fun day for me as well, except with a healthy dollop of stir-crazy mixed in. It threatened rain all day so although the temps were decent, I didn't want to risk walking down to the park only to have to pack it in and run home. (We only have one car, and Dave took it. I know, we're so 1960's.) Naturally, it didn't start to rain until after the kids were in bed and I was out walking the dog.

After breakfast on Sunday, I put on my rain boots and jacket and headed out for a walk in the rain, that's how desperate I was for a little alone time. It was warm enough out and there was no wind to drive the rain so I parked myself on a bench next to the Mighty Susquehanna and watched the rain-and-snow-melt-filled river rush by. When I came home we got ourselves together and headed out for our weekly ice skating adventure. Holly and I hit the concession stand and wandered around the rink, alternately waving at Henry and Dave whenever they went by and running inside to thaw by the fire. When we packed it in and headed for the car, the temperature outside had dropped significantly. Within an hour or so, the rain changed over to sleet. I happened to have the good fortune to be looking out the window when it changed from sleet to snow. I couldn't believe I had started the day off with a nice walk in the rain and now it was snowing. Dave drove in to work after Henry and Holly were in bed and didn't get home until around 1AM. He told me he had left work for home around 12:15AM. It's a ten minute walk from our house to his office, so normally it's a three minute drive. Apparently he got stuck in the parking lot a couple of times, and then when he got home, our driveway had been plowed in and he had to shovel it out. Poor guy.

The next morning we woke up to this:

and this:

Don't the adirondack chairs look soft and cozy?

School was cancelled and Henry, Holly, and I spent another stir-crazy day at home. I had no idea the snow was coming, so I had no plan for the day. The three of us don't do well if there's no plan. By dinner Henry was going bananas, as was I, and Holly was tearing the house apart. In hindsight it was pretty funny, in practice it wasn't pretty.

I love snow, however, I'm also ready to see some leaves on the trees and flowers in the ground. Bring it on, Spring.

Posted by Jenn at 10:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

1. Dave and I had the following conversation this morning:

dave: What the h*ll is Pennsylvania thinking? They've made it mandatory that as of March 1st, all new residential construction include sprinkler systems!
me: You mean for fire saftey?
dave: *long pause* Oh. Right. That's the kind they're talking about.

Dave was ready to do battle against mandatory lawn sprinklers. Meanwhile, I laughed and laughed and laughed.

2. Holly woke up from her nap yesterday with a new skill: two word sentences. Last night at dinner she hollered across the table "DADDY LOOK!!!" This morning she giggled and said "Silly marker!", there being no marker in sight. A girl can dream though. Also, all of her sentences end in exclamation points. That's how she rolls.

3. Thanks to internet searches based on today's retronaut, I just spent half an hour studying the Droeshout engraving of Shakespeare for signs of a conspiracy. It takes me back to those first few weeks after I had finished reading "The Da Vinci Code". Good times, good times.

Posted by Jenn at 01:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Henry has taken a shine to ice skating. We tried to take him a couple of years ago, but he wasn't going to have anything to do with standing on two thin pieces of metal attached to boots, especially when you had to wear them on ice. Did you know ice is slippery? And that you can fall? And that falling hurts? He was, however, highly interested in the concession stand, which was totally fine with me because I was pregnant with Holly and had just passed the morning sickness phase of things. So Henry and I sat on the bleachers with our hot dogs, nachos, and blue Slush Puppies and happily watched Dave go around and around and around...

While chatting with friends at the bus stop one morning, it came out that a certain other Kindergartener not only loved ice skating, but was taking lessons, and maybe we should all go skating together some weekend. Henry heartily agreed, but as the day drew closer and closer, he realized what "going ice skating" actually involved, and he sobered up on the concept a bit. Finally on the day of, he declared he didn't want to go. We told him he didn't have to skate if he didn't want to, but that we were still going to go anyway. He heaved a great sigh as if there couldn't be more bothersome parents on the face of the Earth, then said he'd try ice skating after all, a statement which was met with raised eyebrows on the part of both me and Dave, after which there was a mad rush to get everyone into the car and to the rink before a certain someone changed his mind.

He didn't change his mind. Instead, he had a blast. The afternoon was full of skating, punctuated by trips to the concession stand to refuel. The sight of Dave and Henry slowly going around the rink, with Henry's skates scuffling at such a high rate of motion they're a blur, is truly something to behold, as is the permanent, toothy grin and fervent, proud waving whenever the young man passes by where Holly and I are sitting. With one exception, we've gone every weekend since. It's a good way to pass a Sunday afternoon.

Posted by Jenn at 01:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)